Shopify describe themselves as ‘The Ecommerce platform made for you.’ Launching just over a decade ago, the platform was developed after the founders wanted to setup an online shop selling snowboarding equipment. Quickly realising there wasn’t a platform that gave them the control they needed over their store, they decided to take matters into their own hands and the rest as they say is history.

So why choose the Shopify platform?

Join a community of 500,000 Shopify store owners…

The numbers speak for themselves. You’ll join a community of 500,000 other Shopify store owners who have chosen the platform to run their Ecommerce business. Not only this, Shopify has over a million active users and boasts over $40 billion in sales through the platform. Sounds good right?

Say hello to everything you need, all in one place…

Perhaps one of the overarching benefits of Shopify is that it has everything you need to successfully run your store, all in one place. From design, payment gateways, security, analytics and more, your every need has been catered for to make this a seamless way to setup, edit and manage your store. They offer 24/7 support too so you’re safe in the knowledge there’s always somebody ready and waiting to help you anytime, anywhere.

Easy to use (no back end skills required)…

The platform has been designed so it’s super easy to use. You can literally setup your store in minutes. There’s no need to worry if you haven’t got any technical back end skills, you won’t need them. Beginners are most definitely welcome here. But if you are an expert, there are hundreds of apps and features you can add to enhance your shop.

You’re in control of design…

Unlike other platforms that give you little control of design, with Shopify the world is your oyster. With an easy drag-and-drop store builder, there are over 100 themes to choose from, so you can really get creative. Customise colours, fonts, imagery and more in a matter of moments to make the visuals of your online store unique to your business.

If you’re looking to setup an online store, or move an established Ecommerce site to a new platform, Shopify is definitely something to consider. It’s efficient setup and accessible system means you’ll be up and running in no time. With a free 14-day trial, you can explore the world of Shopify in detail and determine how the platform will work for you.

On Monday September 4th I was delighted to attend the 2nd “Day with Shopify” in Birmingham, conveniently located at Birmingham Library just a 5 minute walk from our Head Offices.

It is an ambitious series of events spanning the globe, next in New York, then Canada, onto Bangalore before finishing in Melbourne in November later this year. After the day you can see why, they’re a fiercely ambitious Company with the swagger to match and having played around with their product for the last 12 months, I think it’s fair to say they have the product to match too.

The first thing to strike you is the friendliness of the Shopify community, you can tell this comes straight from the top of the Company and filters down through its staff and into the strategic partners, everyone wants to help each other out. There is a joint feeling of optimism through the network and that knowledge shared as a collective will be to the benefit of the whole Shopify ecosystem.

GROWTH

Shopify started as an idea back in 2004 amongst some frustrated snowboarders, trying to get their own online store online. They eventually solved the problem themselves and launched the Shopify product in 2006, the growth since is extraordinary.

This Google Trends chart shows backs up the impressive numbers powering Shopify’s growth with the merchant count tripling over the last 5 years to over 500,000.

KEYNOTE

There were a number of good speakers on the day, covering a wide range of topics all of whom with an engaging personal story on how Shopify has helped fuel their entrepreneurial ambition.

The day kicked off with a keynote speech from Brandon Chu, Director of Product development at Shopify. It was a great speech, charting his early career as a professional poker his failed but valiant attempt to disrupt the amateur live music business and his eventual step into Shopify 2 years ago.

Almost carbon-cut from the ‘silicon valley, ivy-league educated’ guy you might imagine, Brandon was extremely impressive as a presenter and even more so when talking about his plans for the Shopify product into the years ahead. The future of the platform seems in safe hands.

OFFICE HOURS

One of the best features of the day was the availability of ‘Office hours’. These would run concurrently to the main talks and offer you the chance to book 15 mins with Shopify specialists and the presenters of the day. An excellent concept and ensures you get the most out of the day, giving you this crucial one on one time to probe away to any issues specific to you.

THE FUTURE

Shopify feels like it’s the right technology at the right time for the ecommerce industry. Nearly 20 years of growth on expensive, slow-moving and clunky platforms has left many merchants desperately looking for a more cost-effective nimble solution and ready to make the switch.

Check out the chart below.

This is the earlier Google trends graph charting the demand in searches for Shopify but now overlaid with those for Magento. The change in the last 12 months is stark, with Shopify moving ahead for the first time with the rather stale demand for Magento beginning to tale off.

This is surely a sign of things to come and Shopify is well positioned to take advantage of legacy mid-level solutions like Magento as well as the next generation of basement start-ups looking to quickly get online and scale their ideas.

Shopify started in 2006 with a team of 5, now they have over 2,000 employees and are turning over a considerable amount. Shopify offers companies an online platform which they can develop to sell their products and services.

But, how exactly does Shopify fair when it comes to providing both a website that is beneficial to the company using it and a good user experience?

In this blog, I will be dissecting a website created on Shopify, so I can tell you whether it is worth it.

Case Study:

Despite Shopify having thousands of websites I chose Beardbrand as my case study.

Well, it was started in 2012 by Eric Bandholz, a beard fanatic who became sick of the negative connotations surrounding men with beards. Beardbrand aims to provide the tools for men so they can feel good about their beards (I feel like Eric is the Superman for all beard growers out there, three cheers for Eric!).

Entering The Site:

Before entering the site, the user is asked to choose a currency they would like to shop in. This is a simple yet effective method. We have all been in the position when you are trying to order off an international website whilst having Google Currency Converter open in another tab to try and figure out just how out of pocket you are going to be. It doesn’t create the best user experience, so Beardbrand – well done!

The Homepage:

(Above the Fold)

(Below the Fold)

There are two separate parts to the Homepage: Above the Fold (the first image) and Below the Fold (the second and third image). Above the Fold refers to the part of the page that the users see without scrolling down. This should be where a company puts the most important information, but it shouldn’t be overcrowded because users hate crowded pages. Below the Fold refers to the part of the page that users have to scroll down too. Now we have all the jargon out of the way, let’s get back to analysing!
Beardbrand has ‘smashed it’ in terms of their Above the Fold. They haven’t overcrowded this part of the page with loads of information, but have still given their users various shortcuts to the most wanted links on their site. They have showcased their new line of ‘sea salt sprays’ which users can shop for instantly. A navigation bar that has drop down menus attached to them, simplifying the process for users and categorises the different products they do. The top banner on the page which encourages users to enter their email in order to receive tips on how to grow the best beard, is extremely clever. Every user who enters their email becomes a subscriber and another potential person they can market to through emails. The main image on the homepage is cut off slightly at the bottom, which encourages users to scroll down for more information.
The Below the Fold has other quick links to other parts of the website but interestingly also has their Instagram feed attached. As the beard trend has become popular among young male professionals, Instagram is one of the best ways to promote, as younger users tend to be persuaded by visual and quirky images rather than chunks of text and stock imaging.

Products:

On all the various products, rather than users having to click and scroll through various products to discover whether the products suit their needs Beardbrand have this information on the product page underneath the product photos, in symbol form e.g. Vegan Friendly, good for Sensitive Skin and so on. This saves the user time when browsing, which is always a plus.

Product Descriptions:

The product descriptions are detailed and witty making them more enticing to users (because who doesn’t love a little laugh). The ingredients list also shows what they are actually are, for instance when a user hovers over ‘Jojoba Oil’ (it seems like this oil is in everything, but what is it and what does it do?) Beardbrand tells you what the oil is good for and how it works.
Furthermore, as the user scrolls down the page to the reviews (which are pretty good) a smaller version of the product follows, so the user doesn’t have to scroll all the way back up in order to add the product to a cart.

The Answer To The Question

The rumours are right, Shopify is a great web development for platform that allows companies to be creative on their websites whilst retaining a great customer experience. Beardbrand have used the platform in a simple yet effective way. They have added plug-ins that have made it easier for them to attract their target audience as well as making the general browsing experience easy, as their navigation bar can always be seen on every page.

Did you know here at Apex Ecommerce, one of the website development platforms we use is Shopify?
If you want to know how we can help you kickstart your Ecommerce site, then get in Contact!

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